Flooring tiles are commonly made of ceramic, clay, or stone. These tiles often have a special surface treatment that increases the friction coefficient and prevents slippage making movement on the tile safe. The tiles are also processed to sustain prolonged periods of wear.
Recently, glass panels (tiles) have become popular for different decorative applications including large colored panels, colored glass walls, doors, and floor tiles. It is known to place different images on one or both sides of a glass panel either to limit visual access through the glass sheets or implement a desired decorative pattern. However, glass has a low coefficient of friction, particularly when it is wet.
There are two competing requirements presented when glass panels (tiles) are used as a flooring material, namely aesthetic appearance versus safety of the glass floor. Generally, the glass surfaces could have different finishes and images printed on them that would be visually attractive. These surfaces, whilst aesthetically very pleasing to the eye of a viewer, could be slippery especially when they become cleaned or contaminated with fluids. In particular ceramic coatings, often required over plastic coatings on account of their better wear characteristics, can be as slippery as bare glass.
Cleaning of both ceramic and glass tiles covered floors require application of a cleaning fluid, which in most of the cases is water with a detergent. Application of the cleaning fluid to a tile or panel temporarily reduces the friction coefficient and in order to avoid damages to human beings, warning signs are usually temporary placed on segments of the floor being cleaned. When the cleaning fluid evaporates, the friction coefficient restores it original value and the signs are removed.